


maybe it’s anemia, maybe it’s maybelline

by Eiso



Series: monster au [3]
Category: Let's Play Cyberpunk Red - Polygon (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:21:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28855773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiso/pseuds/Eiso
Summary: “The metallic tang of blood hit Burger’s nose, and his hands were shifting from gently carding through Vang0’s hair to gripping tight as he pulled their head away before consciously processing what was going on, and Dasha was clutching at her neck and Vang0 was gasping in great huge gulps of air and Burger’s eyes were fixed on the two dripping fangs that had appeared in their mouth and the smear of blood across their lips”a.k.a. 5 times Vang0 acted oddly +1 time they realized why
Relationships: Vang0 Bang0/Dapper Dasha/Burger Chainz
Series: monster au [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095569
Kudos: 6





	maybe it’s anemia, maybe it’s maybelline

**Author's Note:**

> Vampirism as an analogy for neurodivergence? ,,,perhaps  
> Thanks to Marley for beta-ing!! This fic would not have happened without them <3  
> tw for disordered eating, panic attacks/intrusive thoughts and self harm  
> minor tw for non-graphic descriptions of vomiting, blood, mentions of drugs, and brief (non explicit) sexual content  
> Check the end notes for more details on the trigger warnings

1.

Vang0 hadn’t been planning on leaving the warehouse that day (or any day, really, it had been easy enough so far to sleep in the rafters during the day while the few non-robotic workers were around, break into the vending machines and bathroom at night, splice themself into the company intranet for a few hours a day to figure out how this whole  _ living  _ thing was supposed to work) but once Burger walked in they really didn’t stand a chance -- Vang0 always watched for when new people came in, had to be aware of any potential threats, but when this  _ particular  _ new guy brought in the latest shipment, all smiles and steel and barely restrained violence, well, 

Vang0 fell hard. Literally. The man laughed easy and genuine at some joke and they tripped over nothing, slipped from the definitely-not-OSHA-compliant catwalk and got the wind knocked out of them as they faceplanted onto a stack of crates a few feet down -- which, at least not being able to breathe meant they didn’t have to worry about making too much noise as their nose met cheap plastic with a sickening crunch, the actual sound of their landing was easily buried under the busy machinery but someone swearing at the top of their lungs might have been a bit more out of place -- 

Apparently Vang0 wasn’t quiet enough, though, because before they could blink the tears from their eyes or check if their nose was actually broken an angry voice was shouting up at them (something about trespassers? or maybe rats?) and they were being dragged off the crates by their foot and before Vang0 knew it they were face-to-shin with the new guy and the floor supervisor was pointing a shotgun at them and asking them what they were doing there, and Vang0 didn’t have an explanation -- they didn’t think “I just woke up here a couple weeks ago” was gonna cut it -- and the new guy was interrupting with a drawled “hey, it’s alright Bill, I know them, they’re a friend,” and for one shining second Vang0 believed him, felt a bubble of hope rise in their chest, until they were lowered to the ground, pulled up onto their feet and into a hug -- that had  _ no  _ right to be as comforting as it was, soft hair brushing against Vang0’s cheek as their face was pressed into a surprisingly nice smelling shoulder -- and the man was whispering to them to “play along, you don’t wanna piss off Bill, trust me,” and

Vang0 didn’t particularly feel like playing along  _ or _ trusting him, but apparently the supervisor (Bill?) did because she lowered her gun, told the guy to “get your  _ friend _ out of here, Burger, before I shoot both of you,” and Vang0’s new -- friend? who was called Burger, apparently, and Vang0 wasn’t really in a position to be throwing stones but still, that was a pretty unfortunate name if they did say so themself -- Vang0’s new  _ compatriot  _ pulled at their arm to usher them towards the exit, and, okay, Vang0 didn’t particularly want to play along with whatever the hell was going on here but if the options were a shotgun blast to the face or following after Burger (and his broad shoulders and strong arms and nice ass -- whoops, eyes up, they had to stay focused), Vang0 knew which one they were going with, so they shoved their nerves to the side, took a deep breath, followed Burger out the door into the bright sunlight, and

Vang0 thought for a second that they had gone blind, or they were dying, or maybe a flashbang had gone off, because the instant they stepped outside the dimly lit warehouse their vision whited out, a spike of pain driving into their brain until Vang0 slammed their eyes shut, covered their face with their hands just to be safe, because it felt like someone had taken a red-hot poker and shoved it straight through their eye sockets -- and it really wasn’t Vang0’s day, was it, because even the brief second of light had apparently triggered a rapid-onset migraine that was nearly as bad as when they tried to remember anything from before the warehouse, pressure building behind their eyes and at the base of their skull -- 

And this had all been a trick, hadn’t it, Burger had tricked Vang0 into coming outside and now they were blind and hurting and vulnerable and he was going to make them hurt worse, how had they been so  _ stupid _ , they knew better than this -- they knew better than to trust the first guy who offered them ‘help’, regardless of his guileless grin and warm hands and strong arms, regardless of how much they liked the easy drawl of his voice -- and well, Vang0 might have just made a horrible, horrible mistake but hopefully Burger would just kill them, they didn’t have anything of value to steal and they  _ really  _ didn’t want to consider any other alternatives and they could hear him moving closer and they cringed away, waited for the first blow to land, felt one large hand grip their shoulder, heard that deceptively kind voice say --

“Hey, you okay there, buddy? What’s up, didja take anything I should know about?” and maybe Vang0 was just being fooled again but, Burger didn’t have to soften them up, they weren’t even half his size, there was no way they could take him in a fight, and they thought that maybe they hadn’t actually been fooled at all, or (more likely) if Burger  _ was  _ playing them maybe his game didn’t end with Vang0 broken and bleeding on the ground -- they could deal with anything else, roll with the punches and get away when the opportunity arose, or twist it to their advantage somehow, Burger didn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed, Vang0 could work with this -- and Burger’s hand was still heavy on their shoulder but it wasn’t moving to tighten around their throat or shove them to the ground or, do anything but, stay there, and Vang0 didn’t understand, their head felt like it was going to explode (or maybe implode) if they didn’t claw their eyes out  _ right the fuck now _ , they couldn’t think, couldn’t talk to explain what was going on, and

Burger was saying something, but it felt like Vang0 was hearing him from underwater, the words distorted and meaningless apart from a few snatches of words (“tell m- alright if-- va-”), they thought they heard their name (when had they told him their name?), a mention of going somewhere darker, and yes yes yes _ please _ they wanted to go somewhere away from this light -- and the hand on their shoulder was pushing them forward, steering them across gravel and concrete, a second hand joining to catch them as they tripped over a curb, and then 

Burger’s voice was in their ear (“we’re here, watch the door-- well, hmm, hold up a sec and I’ll help you in,”) and the red glow burning through Vang0’s fingers vanished as they entered somewhere blessedly dark, their hands were pulled away from their face and something (“what-” “sunglasses, should help with the light,”) was placed on their face and Vang0 opened their eyes to see Burger looking down at them with a slight frown that turned into a brilliant grin as they pushed themself to their feet, threw up a shaky \/B, and told him that “that’s better, thanks for the glasses -- hey, do you need any help with your wifi?”

2.

It was a few months after he’d first met Vang0 that Burger realized something was wrong -- Vang0 had been staying with him for a couple days because they’d maybe-possibly-definitely hacked into the wifi for their apartment complex to make everyone’s default browser Jumptrash and their landlord was  _ rather  _ unhappy with them, so Burger had made room in his van for Vang0’s extensive wardrobe and got another pillow for the mattress and was looking forward to hanging out with his friend for a while, except -- 

Vang0 wasn’t eating -- and not the kind of drugged up not-eating that usually came along with netrunners like Vang0, where they were so strung out on various uppers and the net that they forgot their bodies even existed for days on end, Vang0 stayed surprisingly clean for their profession, so no, it wasn’t that sort of not eating, it was just that -- Vang0 didn’t eat breakfast, which, fine, okay, most people didn’t, but Vang0 didn’t really eat lunch either, not that Burger had seen, and when he took them to dinner the third night (“you asking me out, Burger?” “oh, um, no- but if ya wanted-” “I mean, I’ve already slept over so it’s only polite, really,”) Vang0 had left their food basically untouched, finished off their soda but not much else, and that night Burger had looked over at Vang0 curled up next to him in an honestly pretty bad imitation of sleep and the streetlamp coming in through the window had highlighted the hollows of Vang0’s cheeks, their skinny hand resting on their pillow, and Burger just  _ knew  _ that if he reached out to run a hand along their back he would be able to feel every rib and vertebrae, and 

Maybe it was none of his business, but Vang0 was one of his best friends, his partner in -- is it a crime if you don’t get caught? -- his partner in  _ legally ambiguous activities _ , maybe his partner in another sense if they were down for a second date, and they weren’t eating, and they looked frighteningly frail without their personality taking up half the room, so Burger reached out, put his hand over Vang0’s -- and their hand was so  _ cold _ , he’d give them the heated blanket tomorrow night, Burger could live without it for a day or two -- and told them to “wake up, Vang0, I know you’re not really asleep,” and maybe he shouldn’t have just jumped in like this but his friend was so  _ fucking _ thin, Burger was almost afraid of them snapping like a twig if he held them too tight, so he swallowed down his nerves and asked them why they weren’t eating, and “you know you can ask me for help if you need it, dontcha?” and, when they tried to wave him off, told them that “you’re  _ not _ fine, have you looked in the mirror lately?” and “I want to help you, if you’ll let me,” and “you’re scaring me a lil’ bit, Vang0, please, tell me what you need,” and

Apparently what Vang0  _ needed  _ was food that didn’t make them puke their guts out (and maybe it was a bit fucked up that hearing that was a relief, but Burger could work with this, could fix this,) which was perhaps a bit more of a problem than Burger first assumed because apparently anything thicker than a smoothie was a no-go, and Vang0 was allergic to pretty much  _ everything _ , and multivitamins could only go so far when they couldn’t get the basic calories they needed to function -- but Burger hadn’t once backed down from a fight his whole life, and he wasn’t about to start now, so Vang0’s traitorous body had better buckle up because Burger was  _ going _ to fix this.

Soon. 

Maybe.

Eventually.

Okay so it might be a little harder than Burger thought at first -- he’d brought Vang0 milkshakes, and turns out they couldn’t do dairy; fruit smoothie? nope, they were allergic to fructose; vegetable smoothie? no chlorophyll allowed, apparently; and no gluten either, just for fun -- and Burger  _ had _ managed to come up with a nasty slurry of water, protein powder, and crushed multivitamins that Vang0 could just barely manage to keep down, but watching his partner cringe and gag and flap their hands in disgust as they forced it down three times a day wasn’t exactly Burger’s idea of a good time, so it was a relief, when 

While Vang0 was cooking dinner for Burger’s birthday -- real steak, Burger didn’t know who Vang0 had to kill to get it but he wasn’t complaining -- Vang0 poked at the meat to check if it was done (“it’s been on the stove for three seconds, Vang0, be patient!” “if you’re so smart why don’t you cook it instead,  _ Dasha _ ”), and stuck their finger in their mouth to clean it off instead of washing their hands “like a  _ normal  _ person, Vang0, that’s so nasty,” (“again, you’re welcome to take over here,”) and then did it again, and a third time, their eyes a little wide, and at this point Burger didn’t think Vang0 was just doing it to piss Dasha off -- though that was certainly an added benefit -- because they were abandoning their spot by the stove and rushing over to the fridge to pull out a second chunk of meat and,

Okay, Burger wasn’t one to judge when it came to meat consumption (after the D1pp1n D0ts incident he wasn’t allowed to throw any stones, according to Dasha) but he didn’t think he’d ever seen someone throw meat in the blender before? That was definitely what Vang0 was doing, though, and the look of relief on their face when they drank the resulting -- smoothie? mush? --  _ concoction _ was quite possibly the best birthday present Burger had ever received, because for  _ once  _ Vang0 was eating without prompting, wasn’t bent over dry heaving, wasn't even grimacing, was pouring themself a second glass and finishing that too, and if a goddamned raw meat smoothie was what it took to stop his partner starving themself then Burger would happily make it for them every day for the rest of his life because Vang0 was  _ eating _ \-- 

Except, it wasn’t quite that easy, because of  _ course _ it wasn’t, so naturally when Burger blended up imitation meat the next day Vang0 couldn’t keep it down, of  _ course _ it was real meat that had done the trick, of  _ course _ Burger was “a fucking failure of a boyfriend,” 

(“shut up, Burgs, only I’m allowed to talk shit about you,”

“but we can’t afford this unless we rob a bank or something, hey, d’you know of any banks we could rob?”

“...I’ll look into it”) 

And maybe Burger didn’t have any of Vang0’s shady meat-market contacts but he did know a few wolves who sold (relatively) ethically sourced meat on the side -- stealing organs from cops didn’t count, right? they were just pigs anyways -- and what Vang0 didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, so Burger made Vang0 a goddamned raw meat smoothie every morning, and he didn’t tell Vang0 where it was coming from, and they didn’t ask (he thought they probably knew, though, especially after the whole werewolf reveal), and Vang0 gained a bit of weight, and Burger didn’t have to give them the heated blanket at night anymore, and Dasha didn’t have to organize a bank robbery, so Burger thought he’d done alright, in the end.

3.

Dasha was generally in awe of Vang0’s ability to sleep through basically anything; Vang0 didn’t manage to get to sleep often, but on the rare occasions when they did, they could sleep through a nuclear explosion, and had done so on at least one occasion that Dasha was aware of -- that had been a bad day, some corp had decimated half of the financial district and neither Burger nor Dasha could get a hold of Vang0, the streets were unpassable so they’d had to go on foot to Vang0’s apartment, Burger had kicked the door down when they didn’t respond to knocking and Dasha was already on her agent with some contacts about finding them (or their corpse, or their nuclear blast shadow, if it came to that), turned out Vang0 was fast asleep after staying awake for just under two hundred hours straight and was so dead to the world they didn’t wake up until Dasha dosed them with a particularly nasty black market upper, and she probably would have felt worse about that if she hadn’t spent the last four hours fearing that her partner had been vaporized due to corporate in-fighting -- 

So yeah, Vang0’s propensity for deep sleep could be  _ inconvenient  _ at times, especially when Dasha may or may not have started a small fire in the kitchen -- and it was honestly ridiculous that she couldn’t put metal in the microwave, it felt like there should be a warning written on there somewhere -- and the fire alarm was going off and the downstairs neighbors were hitting something against their ceiling while they yelled at her to shut it off,  _ so  _ sorry but she was “a little  _ busy here _ , Kathy, you know, trying to stop the building from  _ burning down _ ,” and well, it might have been nice if Vang0 would wake up and turn off the alarm, seeing as Burger was currently banned from messing with any electronics --  _ punch it until it does what you want _ really only worked when the one doing the punching didn’t have built in brass knuckles, Dasha had found -- and Dasha was preoccupied with trying to get the fire extinguisher down from where someone had wedged it on top of the fridge, but 

Vang0 needed their sleep, really -- they’d been up for about seventy hours before this and while it wasn’t the longest they’d ever stayed awake it still wasn’t  _ great _ , so Dasha wasn’t about to go wake them unless it was completely necessary, at this point -- and Kathy needed to “ _ shut up _ , you’re making more noise than me at this point,” and Burger needed to “get  _ away _ from the alarm, we’re not having a repeat of last week,” and (“got it! who put this up here in the first place?”) Dasha needed to stop the fire from getting any bigger than it already was, and open the window to air out the smoke, and then get Vang0 to tell her their sleep secrets because she’d only been up for a couple hours but they’d been  _ unpleasantly _ eventful and she was just about ready to go back to bed.

4.

Perhaps the universe did have a sense of karmic justice after all, because it wasn’t even two weeks after that last job when Vang0’s own apartment got broken into -- and they couldn’t even be mad, really, the thief hadn’t gone after any of the really important stuff, just stolen the TV and some collectors edition sunglasses, which, yeah it sucked, but they hadn’t gone after the rest of Vang0’s closet or their fancy sulfate-free shampoo, so it wasn’t that bad, they’d just have to get Dasha to help replace the locks and maybe reorganize their shelves a bit --

First things first though, Vang0 needed to get their glasses organized -- the shelf they normally kept their sunglasses on had been just  _ completely _ messed up, the thief had apparently just pawed through Vang0’s collection with no regard for color or style, and now most of the sunglasses were on the floor in a haphazard pile which would not do at all, it was bad enough that their rhinestone-LED sunglasses were missing, but couldn’t the thief have at least been considerate enough to put whatever they didn’t take back where they found it? Apparently not, so instead of playing sixnite on their relaxing afternoon off, 

Vang0 was stuck sweeping the apartment for bugs and counting through their sunglasses to see how many were missing -- seven, apparently, ah well, could’ve been worse, they still had -- oh, they had twenty-three now, that could be a little problematic, not the  _ best _ number for sorting things nicely, but Vang0 could make it work, could organize them by color into rows of -- well, hmm, there wasn’t really any good number of rows that could work, but that was okay, maybe a nice pyramid structure -- no, that didn’t work either, okay, time to reconsider, and maybe there was a bit of panic rising in Vang0’s chest but they were fine, they’d be fine, they weren’t going to let a stupid number bother them, they’d just line the glasses up in rows of five and then have one row of three, that would be fine, they could leave it that way, time to make sure that they hadn’t missed any bugs in the kitchen --

And maybe they weren’t exactly  _ fine _ , because Vang0 didn’t make it even three steps to the door -- breathe in, breathe out -- before turning around because they couldn’t just leave the glasses all uneven like that, it was wrong, they needed to fix it, they’d put the glasses back in a pyramid and it would be fine, okay  _ now _ out to the kitchen -- no -- breathe in, breathe out, five finger taps -- the pyramid was wrong too, rows of eleven and they’d wear a pair of glasses, now walk away, hand on the door -- but Vang0 couldn’t just leave them like that, eleven was such a bad number for rows and they’d have to take off the last pair of glasses eventually -- breathe in one, breathe out two, five finger taps -- so 

They had to fix this now or they’d never get anything done -- breathe in one, breathe out two, one-two-threefourfive finger taps -- maybe a single row of twenty-three, no, not enough room, and a bad number besides -- breathe in one, breathe out two, onetwothreefourfive finger taps -- it was wrong again, it was  _ wrong  _ and the numbers were crawling under Vang0’s skin -- one, two, onetwothreefourfive -- and they couldn’t leave them as is but if they had to look at these  _ fucking _ sunglasses for another minute they’d claw their eyes out -- onetwothreefourfive, onetwo _ threefourfive _ \-- because they weren’t  _ cooperating _ , why couldn’t the numbers just  _ behave _ \-- onetwothree- -- and this wasn’t like coding where Vang0 could change a few lines to make it right because this was the real world and the numbers were wrong -- one- one- -- and if Vang0 just left the glasses where they were everything else would be wrong too, the numbers -- one- one- one _ two _ \-  _ onetwothreefourfive  _ \-- would crawl under their skin and into their brain and they would be wrong wrong  _ wrong _ just like these  _ fucking glasses _ \-- and everything was wrong and Vang0 couldn’t fix it -- had to fix it -- couldn’t  _ fix it _ couldn’t couldn’t (“--can’t do everything on your own, you know,”) couldn’t fix it on their own -- count, keep counting, one two threefourfive -- call Dasha -- good numbers, those were  _ good _ numbers -- tell her that “it’s wrong it’s  _ wrong  _ Dasha please, they won’t --  _ fuck _ \-- line  _ up _ you piece of shit --” (“What’s wro- are you  _ crying _ ? I’m on my way,”)

And Vang0 couldn’t quite figure out if Dasha had hung up or not because before she stopped talking they had hit their head against the floor to get the numbers to  _ shut up _ and there was a moment of blessed silence so they did it again and again and again -- one. two. three. four. five. -- and the distant pain kinda made the world fall away for a while, and 

The next thing Vang0 was really aware of was something soft being placed under their head (“what did you  _ do _ , you idiot,”) and something warm being draped over them (“I’m not carrying you to bed, you’ll just have to wait until Burger gets here,”) and when Vang0 woke up a few hours later with a blinding headache but blissfully silent thoughts, they found twenty-five sunglasses in neat rows of five in their closet -- twenty-three of their own, and two  _ disgustingly  _ fashionable new ones with  _ DD _ embossed along the sides.

5.

The job had been going incredibly smoothly up to this point, so really Dasha shouldn’t have been surprised when everything went to shit -- they’d tracked their mark down to an unregistered apartment near the docks, Vang0 had hacked into the security cams and Burger had knocked out the security guard in the lobby, the lock to the apartment had been easy enough to pick and their target didn’t appear to be home, they’d get the papers easily, all in a day’s work, except Vang0 wouldn’t  _ fucking move _ , just hovered by the door and tapped their fingers nervously -- and if Dasha didn’t know that Vang0 never used drugs on the job she’d think they were high, all twitchy nervous energy and glassy far away eyes and not  _ fucking _ paying attention when she said that “we have to hurry, Vang0, so if you could get in here already that would really be appreciated, thanks”

And apparently that  _ thanks  _ had just been wishful thinking, because Vang0 didn’t move at all, muttered something about breaking in being “so  _ rude _ , Dasha, couldn’t we have just waited until they got back and made up a reason to be invited in? It worked fine with M-house,” and 

Okay, Dasha had approximately zero time for this bullshit, so she dragged Vang0 into the apartment, told them to “get to work, have a nervous breakdown later --  _ why _ you couldn’t worry about being  _ polite _ when you’re barging into the van without knocking I’ll never know, could’ve saved your viewers an eyeful or two --” 

(“Burger’s van doesn’t count, I’m always welcome there, right Burger?” 

“Sure are!” 

“Burgs, you are not helping right now, go check the bedroom or something,”)

And maybe Vang0 didn’t stop muttering about “respecting personal boundaries” and how “people should feel safe in their homes” while they picked the lock on the filing cabinet, but at least they were, in fact, picking the lock and not out in the hallway handwringing like some high-society trophy wife at a black market, so Dasha wasn’t too bothered about the attitude; she was, however, bothered by the realization that they were streaming this, and had been for the past twenty minutes, “have you never heard of OpSec, Vang0?” and naturally this realization was accompanied by a ping on her agent warning that the mark was on his way back, because of  _ course  _ it was, so she called Burger away from where he was -- checking the dishwasher? “Really, Burgs? Get over here and watch the door, dear god this is like herding cats,” told Vang0 to “hurry it up, we’re about to have company,” and checked that the safety was off on her pistol before positioning herself by the doorway while Burger stepped out into the hallway and Vang0 frantically rifled through the contents of the desk, and 

Dasha’s agent pinged four more times -- the mark was two miles out, one mile, a block away, entering the lobby -- before Vang0 found the files, triumphantly pulling them out of (“goddamnit,  _ really _ ? The fucking  _ dishwasher _ ? How is this my life?”) the  _ fucking  _ dishwasher, because Dasha’s life was a terrible, terrible joke, and the three of them hurried out the door (“Vang0 we do  _ not _ have time for you to relock the door, lets  _ go _ ”) and down the stairs to the van so they could get back to Hypo and let him know that there was yet another area of downtown he might want to stay clear of for a few months.

+1 

Vang0 was always pretty bitey when they got even a little bit worked up, so Burger wasn’t exactly surprised when they latched onto Dasha’s neck as she stuck her hand down their pants -- the surprising part was when the expression on their face flipped from lazy pleasure to desperate confused hunger, and they bit down further, and Dasha let out a shocked gasp that was definitely on the wrong side of pained, and the metallic tang of blood hit Burger’s nose, and his hands were shifting from gently carding through Vang0’s hair to gripping tight as he pulled their head away before consciously processing what was going on, and Dasha was clutching at her neck and Vang0 was gasping in great huge gulps of air and Burger’s eyes were fixed on the two dripping fangs that had appeared in their mouth and the smear of blood across their lips and wow the mood had been just  _ completely  _ killed because

See, normally Burger would be down for any of his hypothetical bed-partners to get a little fang-happy, but, the thing was, it was just that he hadn’t realized Vang0 was a vamp, and they hadn’t told him, and they looked just as surprised as Dasha, and -- shit he should probably check on Dasha now as long as Vang0 was good, wasn’t going to snap or anything, right? and they didn’t respond verbally but they nodded as best they could with Burger’s hand in their hair holding them at arm’s length and that wasn’t a hundred percent reassuring but hey, if they lunged he didn’t particularly mind his arm getting chomped, he’d had worse, so if Dasha could just move her hand so he could “get a look at her neck that’d be great, thanks darlin’, it looks pretty gnarly but Vang0 didn’t get the artery so that’s good, can you keep pressure on it until I get back with the medkit? Vang0 c’mon help me find it and then we’ll get you cleaned up,”

And his partners must have still been in shock because neither of them called Burger out on his super sneaky ploy to get Vang0 out of the room and away from Dasha -- he knew, he  _ knew _ they hadn’t meant to hurt her, they had their hands over their mouth and their eyes were glazed over with confusion as they stared at her bloody hand clamped over the bite and they were essentially a dead weight as Burger dragged them out of the room and Dasha looked -- not angry, mostly just confused, and wasn’t that the keyword for the day -- like she wanted to say something but Vang0’s eyes were tracking the line of blood that ran down her arm to drip onto the mattress (that was going to be a pain to clean up, bloodstains were the  _ worst _ ) and Burger really didn’t want to have to restrain Vang0 if they flipped out on him so he hustled them into the bathroom and grabbed the medkit and told them to wash their face and “try to calm down a bit, okay? I’ll be back in a couple minutes,” and

This whole thing was just a mess, really, the grain-chicken-fox puzzle in real life and Burger was the boat rushing back and forth across the river, but he pushed down his worry, and bandaged Dasha’s neck with shaking hands, and carefully placed himself between Dasha and Vang0 as they crept hesitantly back into the bedroom until 

Dasha swept past him and punched Vang0 gently in the shoulder and told them that she “always knew you were a thirsty little bitch, you asshole” and pulled them into a hug and didn’t flinch as their head dropped onto her shoulder, and they murmured an apology because of course they hadn’t meant to hurt her and they didn’t know what the  _ fuck  _ was going on, and Burger could help on that front at least but Dasha just rolled her eyes and told him to “get over here Burgs, we’ll talk later,” 

And maybe Vang0 was still a little fangy, and maybe Dasha was still a little pale from shock, and maybe Burger was still a little shaken up over the whole thing, but his partners were safe and he could snag some bloodpacks from Hypo when he went over tomorrow to refill the medkit -- and hey, now Vang0 had  _ no  _ excuse to look so embarrassed when Burger tried to eat the neighbors on full moons, oh wow Burger was never gonna let them forget this -- and so really the whole situation was under control.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings:  
> Disordered eating - in section 2 one of the characters starves themself due to difficulties processing food, it is not anorexia but could appear similar  
> Panic attacks/intrusive thoughts and self harm - in section 4 one of the characters has a very bad panic attack involving counting and good/bad numbers, there is explicit but not graphic self harm as they try to calm themself down  
> There are brief and non-graphic mentions of vomiting, blood, drugs, and sexual content throughout the entire fic


End file.
